


You Don't Mean That (Reylo)

by i_am_obsessed



Series: Utter Confliction [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Abandonment, Almost Kiss, Conflicted Kylo Ren, Corellia (Star Wars), Dark Reylo, Elevators, F/M, Kylo Ren and Rey Are Not Related, POV Rey (Star Wars), Slow Burn, Slow Burn Rey/Kylo Ren, Suspense, The Resistance Era, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:55:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21942493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_am_obsessed/pseuds/i_am_obsessed
Summary: EDIT: Over 400 hits??!!?! What??!?? THANKS SO MUCH!! 🍾🍾So what if Rey got too scared by her vision of her on the Throne of the Sith and decided to leave the Resistance? What if she left for Corellia right before a major Resistance/First Order thing so that the rebels wouldn't be able to come looking for her? And what if Kylo/Ben felt it through their bond and came looking for her?First post, so leave as much feedback and/or kudos as you'd like.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Utter Confliction [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1579966
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	You Don't Mean That (Reylo)

I stand nervously in front of the elevators in the lobby of the Corellian apartment building, rocking from foot to foot and waiting. Running my hand along the saber-shaped bump on my bag, I breathe as deeply as I can and will it to give me courage. Just one more day hiding here, I thought. Your friends left two nights ago. Give them time to get a few systems away from you.  
They’ll be safe this way.  
Somehow, wandering about Coronet City doesn’t scare me. Faces constantly passing by make me insignificant in my faded traveling cape and hood. I blend in here the way I did on Jakku—just another warm body in a sea of too many. I slink from shadow to shadow, using the Force to push away the unpleasant feelings that bleed off passersby. There’s a constant pulse of adrenaline and anticipation from the many pilots around me, either building up in preparation for their next takeoff or left over from the landing. It makes my heart race from feeling it secondhand, but I don’t mind those feelings. It reminds me of my work in the Resistance.  
Could I really only have been gone three nights?  
The inhabitants of this city are pilots, fighters, smugglers; they walk an all-too-familiar line between the thrill of the adventure and the fear of the end. Every single being in this city pulses with the gray area of the Force, the side that's neither Light nor Dark. The side that fights, hides, deserts, saves, disappears, martyrs.  
Like me. Except I feel less like a martyr now than just a deserter. 

You left to protect them, Rey, I tell myself fiercely. Don’t start with the regret crap now. 

I do hate all of this waiting around. Waiting for the stormtroopers to pass my hiding place of choice, waiting for the line to the food huts to shrink, waiting for the effing elevators to get here. All I want is to get back to the room I rented with my stolen credits.  
A pair of Twi’leks walk past the infuriatingly slow elevators, chattering quietly to each other. The taller of the two, a male, slows his walk to drape his gaze over me. His yellow eyes find mine, and a corner of his mouth draws back to reveal a meticulously sharped cuspid.  
A shiver runs down my spine. Of all the species on Corellia, Twi’leks are my least favorite. Back on Jakku, I had a nightmare that I was strangled by a pair of floating lekku. It haunts me to this day.  
Suddenly, I feel something else. As the aliens stroll away, hostility rolling off of them in reeking waves, my mind sharpens, my thoughts pressing together through what can only be described as a hole. Memories, thoughts, feelings, concentration rush through the space, out of my mind but not exactly leaving it either. More like spreading themselves in a space between my head and someone else’s.  
And then, more. More thoughts, not my own but tinged in familiarity, trickle back in. A whole different mind seeps into me, dark and inky and dirty and confused, staining my thoughts and tainting the edges of my vision—  
ding  
The elevator arrives, doors parting leisurely. I squeeze my way in before they’ve fully opened, gasping for breath and pushing fiercely against him, the monster in my mind. 

In the measure of one heartbeat, a million little things occur. 

I see him standing there, facing the wall in the right corner like a child in time out, drenched in his own regret and dressed in his usual black. One gloved hand rests against the wall.  
The Force guides my hand to my bag, closes my fingers around the hilt of the lightsaber I don’t deserve.  
He turns around, and his face reveals more than any words could. He is tortured.  
Our eyes lock.  
The world goes silent.  
Our minds merge with a sound like a rush of wind. My thoughts aren’t mine, nor are they his. They’re in the no-man’s-land that is our bond.  
I inhale, and he exhales in rhythm. 

“Deserter.”

“Monster.”

We speak at the same time. He tilts his head to the side, eyes darkening further than I thought was possible. “You don’t mean that,” he says to me.

But you do, I think. I carefully arrange my features into a scowl as I let go of the lightsaber, and my hand drops limply to my side. 

“Why did you leave them? Did you have a change of heart, realize you were too dark for the Resistance? Or did you think you were doing the right thing? Did you think you’d be a martyr, a hero?” Kylo Ren’s words are quiet and cutting. “You had to have known that if I didn’t find them myself in pursuit of you, my Knights would.”  
I nod. This, I had considered. But the rebels are strong enough to fight five lethal soldiers, for the Knights of Ren would simply be following orders. If the Supreme Leader had come after them, however, with a Dark-tainted mind and personal determination to kill, it would have been a different story. That’s why I had to leave, to draw him after me. 

How heroic, his voice echoes through my mind. 

I find my voice. “That’s not why I left,” I hiss. “I don’t care about being a hero!” 

“Oh, but you do,” he drawls, taking a step towards me, “it’s the Dark inside you.”

“Stop!” 

“Darkness craves to be brought to light. It needs recognition, appreciation, satisfaction,” he presses on, speaking quickly the way he always does when he’s trying to invoke a response. “Sure, you had relatively good intentions in abandoning your friends, but there’s a part of you that needs to be the hero in this hopeless situation.  
"The hate inside your mind is twisting around, reaching for something to latch onto.” He closes his eyes momentarily, and I feel him reach further into my subconscious. I tense my shoulders and clench my fists with the effort of trying to push him from my mind. It doesn’t work.  
“It’s the reason you’re here, in front of me, instead of in front of Finn.” Something about the way he compares himself to Finn feels too intimate, and I become defensive.

“Don’t you dare compare yourself to my closest f—“

Friend? His voice in my mind is dripping with venom and sarcasm. 

I’m not going through this bantha shit with you—

“Fine, let’s get to the point.” Abruptly, the direction of his mind shifts; ever so slightly, but noticeably enough for someone already attuned to his thoughts. The way I am, I think to myself quietly.  
His mind was conflicted as always, dark and cloudy and burning hot, zeroed in on one direction confidently. But as he pauses between sentences, the confidence melts away, leaving the flavor of—shyness? He’s gauging my reaction. He’s unsure of how to proceed. But there’s something else there, an edge that twists my insides and sends tiny shockwaves through my fingertips. 

Longing. 

"You’re coming with me.” He walks towards me, crossing the elevator (which, I realize dimly, is no longer moving) in two small strides. Kylo walks right up to me; closer than we’d been before, closer than when we sat across from each other touching hands on Ach-to, closer than when we’d stood in the lift in Snoke’s chambers. We’re so close, his hard chest brushes against the thick strap of my crossbody satchel and the edges of his boots touch mine. The closer he gets, the more intensely I pick up on the utter turmoil that is his mind. It bleeds into me, destroying the weak internal walls I’d built up against him and flooding through until I don’t know if the war in my brain is his or mine. 

A torrent of feelings grabs me by the lungs, forcing the air out of my body and freezing my core. Fear, confusion, and guilt, yes—alongside them, however, stands something more deeply rooted. I struggle with everything in me to keep it deep down, where he can’t find it, because I feel him picking through my head the way I once stripped old speeders for parts. 

It goes against virtually everything I’ve ever felt for him. I had hated him, cared for the Ben Solo side, was afraid of his Dark side, and was deeply hurt after the Battle of Crait—but never before had I felt an echo of this hunger. 

The thought flashes across my mind before I realize it’s happening: I need you just as much as you need me. 

Pure electricity runs through our bond as this registers with him. I watch his throat move as he swallows, suddenly nervous with an achingly hopeful undertone. His breath hitches and fans in a gust over my face, and my stomach drops into my boots. Never ever before have I seen him look so utterly young and vulnerable.  
His gaze drops down to my lips and back up, and suddenly our bond freezes. Only one thought stands left in the space of our joined minds: it’s my face, from his perspective.  
Looking at myself through his eyes, I am beautiful and trembling and unafraid of him, glowing and fierce and terrified. I am suddenly the center of everything. 

Before I know what’s happening, he’s moving his face down, down, down. His lashes tangle with mine, his breath tickles my lips, our minds are united in one need. His eyes close—

I stumble back until my back slams against the opposite side of the elevator. "You don't mean that," I gasp.

The peace and unity in our mind shatters with a jolt, and his face twists into a snarl. His hand waves in front of my face, so hard I feel the wind from it, and I collapse.

The last thing I see before everything goes black is a tear run down his face.

**Author's Note:**

> seriously like 18 kudos and 408 hits!! you all are the BEST!!  
> thank you for reading that! let me know in the comments what you honestly thought and whether you want more more more.


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